Canadian FM warns businesses against deepening China ties

TORONTO — Canada’s foreign minister said Wednesday that China is an increasingly disruptive, global power and warned businesses against deepening their ties, saying there were “geopolitical risks.”

Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly made the remarks at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto ahead of her government introducing a Indo-Pacific strategy next month.

“The China of 1970 is not the China of today. China is an increasingly disruptive, global power,” Joly said. “It seeks to shape the global environment into one that is more permissive for interests and values that increasingly depart from ours.”

Joly said Canada has serious concerns about Beijing undermining global security, commerce and peace. Part of that includes “credible accounts of human rights abuse and crimes against humanity” in the Xinjiang region against the Muslim minority known as the Uyghur.